


Breaking the Ice

by Aerica_Menai



Series: Fandom Ace Fest Fics [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Acephobia, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Asexuality Spectrum, F/M, Gen, Internalized Acephobia, aroace!Mick, panromantic gray-ace!Len, undefined LGBT+ Barry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 00:18:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14964998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerica_Menai/pseuds/Aerica_Menai
Summary: Set in a very hazy AU part of the timeline when Barry and Iris are married but the original Leonard Snart is still kicking around in Central City with Mick post-S1 of Legends. Barry accidentally insults Len in the middle of a heist - and in apologizing, he ends up helping Len figure out a lot more than either of them expected.





	Breaking the Ice

**Author's Note:**

> For the Fandom Ace Fest Prompt #2: Trope Inversion/Subversion - banter not acting as foreplay but instead leading to the ace revelation; revelation not of sexual/romantic feelings but rather of identity.
> 
> Again, very new writer discussing a very personal topic - constructive criticism, please. Many thanks and I hope you enjoy :)
> 
> (Also, I'm so grateful for my fantastic three betas who all had great advice, and to everyone who commented on my last posted fic - I appreciate you all so much, apologies for not posting any replies yet, they're coming!)

Frigid, adj. 1a: intensely cold (as in frigid water); 3a: abnormally averse to sexual intercourse - used especially of women. (“Frigid.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, Web.)

***

Barry did not want to leave his nice warm bed (made even warmer by snuggling with his natural heating pack of a wife) to go confront Snart, who was in the basement of a museum according to the cold gun’s signature that Cisco was tracking. He was sick, but sadly crime didn’t stop just because Barry wasn’t feeling one hundred percent, so he flashed off to the museum. Skidding into the freezing cold room, Barry couldn’t help whining that his head hurt and his nose was running, he had a snuggly wife at home, whyyyyy did he have to come and fight his frigid villain, what he wouldn’t give to be fighting Heatwave right now –

But Barry cut himself off as he turned to face Snart. Rather than witty retorts to Barry’s banter, slyly smirking as usual, Snart’s glare – well, froze Barry in his tracks. What had happened?

Snart quickly answered Barry’s silent question. “Wouldn’t have expected that of you, Flash. My old man, he loved to throw that word around, reminding me what a failure I was in his eyes, but you – I –” Snart took a deep breath. “I didn’t think you knew, or if you ever did that you would care. I guess I was wrong.” With that cryptic announcement made even more cryptic by Barry’s fever-spinning head, Snart left the building without a backwards glance. Barry stood there, mouth open, wondering whether the whole thing had been a fever-induced hallucination, before deciding that he needed sleep before he could properly process and try to figure out what had gone so wrong. He flashed home, crawled into bed with Iris, and passed out.

***

Of course, due to speedster healing, the virus was pretty much out of his system by the time he woke up. Iris was long gone, off working at CCPN, so Barry quietly munched on six bowls of cereal and re-ran his and Snart’s short conflict through his head – Snart looked fine when he first arrived, something must have happened between then and Snart backing off. Most of that time was Barry talking, what could he have possibly said? He was whining about the cold, missing his wife, wishing he was fighting Heatwave – oh. He had said Snart was frigid. And Snart had followed up by saying his father used that as an insult and ohhhh, man, Barry had screwed up. Big time. He needed to fix this ASAP. He flashed off to Saints and Sinners, hoping Snart was present and he could apologize properly.

Unsurprisingly, when Barry showed up, Snart went into frozen-glare mode, pushing out of his bar stool so fast it screeched and stalking out the back door. Since there were people milling around, Barry couldn’t flash around inside the bar – but he could when Snart left. He caught up and screeched to a halt right in front of Snart, their bodies crashing together as Snart steamrolled forward – until Barry grabbed his arm to stop him from continuing. “Please, Snart, I’m so sorry, I swear I didn’t mean what I said last night, I just – want to explain. And apologize properly.” Snart stiffened in his grip, starting to pull away again, but Barry desperately bargained, “My treat, drinks and a meal, wherever you want, as long as you promise to hear me out. Please?”

Snart silently snarled, then roughly shook off Barry’s grip before turning back towards Saints and Sinners. “Fine. But this better be good. And I’m drinking the top-shelf stuff.”

Barry breathed a sigh of relief and rushed behind him. “Whatever you say, Snart.”

***

Len drank two shots of rum before he was willing to listen to Barry. Barry explained that the previous night he was in the middle of fighting off a cold, he was feverish, and he had not meant to use the word frigid as an insult, only to describe the cold temperature of the room – nothing to do with Snart, other than a pun on his villainous alias. Snart, clearly still hurt, snapped, “Yeah, Barry, Captain Cold is frigid, incredibly insightful of you to make the connection.”

Barry took a deep breath and quietly responded, “Snart. I swear, I was only whining about the cold, I would never use that word in reference to a person, because using it in that sense is just not true. Or at least,” Barry hurried on, when Snart opened his mouth to retort, “using it in that sense is a cruel way to describe an asexual person.”

Snart blinked. Slowly, carefully, he asked, “Asexual?”

Cautiously, Barry explained. “My roommate in college, we were both part of the LGBT group on campus, and one day he explained that he wasn’t just gay, he was also asexual. I hadn’t heard of the term yet, so he sent me some explanatory links.” He hesitated, but offered, “I can send them to you, if you like?” He slid his napkin over to Snart. “If you give me an email address.”

Snart stared at him, clearly weighing his need to know versus the damage Barry could do with an email address, before pulling out a pen and scrawling two email addresses on the napkin. When Barry quirked an eyebrow, Snart grunted, “Mick’s.”

Barry nodded. “That…makes a lot of sense. I’ll send them to you both when I get home, and I can talk to my college roommate again if there’s anything you two want to ask him.” Snart just nodded slowly, clearly still processing.

Barry smiled sadly. “I’ll see you around, Snart.”

***

Leonard Snart would never admit that he cried reading the forums, all the reassurances that that he was not broken and there were plenty of other people out there like him. He would never betray his partner’s trust and admit that Mick cried too. And neither of them would ever reveal that the Flash helping them like that…might possibly have affected their interactions with him and Central City as a whole. Nothing could be proven.

Words like panromantic, graysexual, aromantic, asexual, queerplatonic relationship…they repainted the world that Leonard Snart and Mick Rory lived in for the better. These words helped them find peace with themselves and their identities, helped them become less bitter and more willing to see the good in themselves and in others. They swore they could never tell the Flash how much he had affected them.

But Barry knew. He remembered his own introduction to the LGBT+ community, his own discovery of his identity and how freeing – how life-changing – it was. He was glad that Snart and Rory were able to find that themselves.


End file.
